Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort)
By Anthropic · released 2026-06-30 (2 months) · snapshot 2026-09-09
- Intelligence index
- 28.40
- Cost to run the AA index
- $1218
- Price per 1M tokens (in / out)
- $2.00 / $10.0
- End-to-end time
- 9.32s
Is Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) on the Pareto frontier, and what beats it?
Off the frontier
No. GLM-5.3-Flash is at least as smart for the same money or less.
Next step up: GPT-5.6 Sol (high), smarter but dearer.
| # | Model | Creator | Intelligence | Total cost | E2E total | Open | Released | Frontier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) | Anthropic | 28.40 | $1218 | 9.32s | 2026-06-30 | ||
| 2 | GLM-5.3-Flash | Z AI | 41.90 | $280 | 39.5s | 2026-08-26 | Frontier | |
| 3 | GPT-5.6 Sol (high) | OpenAI | 42.50 | $1487 | 19.4s | 2026-07-09 | Frontier |
Open in the picker Daily check URL: 200 on the frontier, 409 once beaten
Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) today
3 of 6 effort levels plotted. The remaining levels lack intelligence or benchmark cost data.
Intelligence: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Cost: total cost to run that benchmark, so reasoning tokens count. API id: claude-sonnet-5-medium.
Compare head to head
Suggested: what beats it, its effort levels, and frontier models near its price.
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs GLM-5.3-Flash
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs GPT-5.6 Sol (high)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Low Effort)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, High Effort)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Xhigh Effort)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Claude Sonnet 5 (Non-reasoning, High Effort)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs GPT-6 Astra (low)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs Muse Spark 1.3 (max)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs GPT-6 Astra (medium)
- Claude Sonnet 5 (medium) vs GPT-6 Astra (high)
Compare Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) with measured models
What the Claude Sonnet 5 release did to the frontier on 2026-06-30
None of its 6 effort levels reached the frontier at launch.
Closest miss: Claude Sonnet 5 (max), 0.2 points below GPT-5.5 (xhigh) at 1.3× the cost.
Should you use Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort)?
Should you use Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort)?
Only when it fits your setup: GLM-5.3-Flash is at least as smart for the same money or less, so Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) is off the value frontier today.
What is better and cheaper than Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort)?
GLM-5.3-Flash — at least as smart for the same money or less.
How much does Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) cost?
$2.00/$10 in/out per 1M tokens, and $1218 to run the full Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the honest all-in number for reasoning models.
Is Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) on the Pareto frontier?
No: GLM-5.3-Flash beats it on intelligence, cost, or both.
Frontier membership by axis pair
Other axis pairs where Claude Sonnet 5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Medium Effort) is Pareto-optimal.
| Y axis | X axis | On the frontier |
|---|---|---|
| AA intelligence index | AA total cost to run (USD) | |
| AA intelligence index | End-to-end total seconds | |
| AA intelligence index | Output speed tokens/sec |
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/models/claude-sonnet-5-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/models/claude-sonnet-5-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill